Category: Plumbing

Bathroom Upgrades

Bathroom Upgrades

Thinking about what to do with your tax refund this year? How about a bathroom mini facelift? Let Bee & Jay help you go from drab to fab, with a few simple and inexpensive changes like a new faucet, vanity top, sink and accessories.

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Still have an old 3.5 gallon per flush toilet? Upgrade to a new 1.6 water saver and cut costs across the board. How about a comfort height toilet with a removable toilet seat for easy cleaning?

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Is your tub stuck in the 70’s or peeling, but you’re afraid of being without a shower for a week? How about installing a new Sterling tub and shower walls? Most installations can be done in a day or two. While you’re at it treat those tired muscles to a long hot massage in the comfort of your own home with a new multi- function shower head and/or handheld. Handhelds make bathing the kids or animals a breeze. Even the dreaded cleaning of the tub can be made easier with a handheld.

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What is Radiant Heat?

What is Radiant Heat?

Radiant heat is a fast growing trend that started in Europe for its distinct benefits. Instead of warming air and then circulating it throughout your home using ducts and vents, radiant heat is embedded under your floor and uses the entire floor to evenly distribute low-temperature heat.

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Although there are a variety of methods and technologies one can choose from, the benefits of radiant heat are the same.

Here are few of most popular reasons to use radiant heat:

Radiant heat warms objects rather than air to create a more even heat throughout your home. Starting with the floor, objects are warmed giving your home a more inviting feeling as your furniture and other fixtures lose their chill. Now, the common complaint of cold feet is cured by heating your floor and letting that heat naturally radiate throughout the room instead of collecting at the ceiling.

Radiant heat is ideal for bathrooms, kitchens, basements, bedrooms or a complete home. Unlike other forms of heat you can easily ‘zone’ individual areas. Each of these zones can be controlled by its own programmable thermostat. Now you can designate specific times of the day and desired temperatures for these areas making your home energy efficient without sacrificing comfort.

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Radiant heat can be used to add supplemental heat to a bathroom or throughout your home as a primary heating source. Contact Bee & Jay to discuss your options.

Cutting Costs for the Holidays with DIY Projects

Cutting costs by taking on “Do-It-Yourself” projects is something we all have to do from time to time, especially around the holidays. Before taking on that leaking pipe or running toilet yourself, it’s important to make sure you take the proper precautions and give the issue as much thought and preparation as possible. Without the proper planning you could end up spending more by having to repair a repair.

No matter what, leaks happen. There are no short cuts in correcting them. There are no magic sprays, tapes or powders that will stop a leak permanently, regardless of what the TV says. If you have a leak and want to fix it, you need to use the proper materials and the correct procedures. You need to use copper on copper and plastic with plastic.
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There is no logic when it comes to plumbing sizes. A sink faucet supply hose is a different diameter than a toilet supply hose. A kitchen sink supply line will not work for a bathroom supply line. Also, your toilet can have three different distances from the wall, and there are countless different toilet flappers and faucet washer sizes. Usually the best guarantee to getting the correct part is to take it with you when you purchase the new one.

 

 

 

Usually a good salesperson can tell you what parts you will need, you can help them help you by bringing in your parts. If that isn’t possible, take a picture to show them. There is nothing worse than having to run to the supply store several times, just to get a ten-cent washer. Bee and Jay Plumbing can recommend a reputable supply company in your area. Trusting your supply company is just as important as trusting your plumber.

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If you are taking on the challenge of your own plumbing repairs, make sure you have the right tools, supplies and parts before you start your job. More importantly, if a Do-It-Yourself repair seems overwhelming and you don’t know where to start, call Bee and Jay to assess the situation. The holidays are right around the corner. Bee and Jay won’t let a minor plumbing repair steal presents from under your tree.

Why Winterize?

Why Winterize?

It is coming and it can’t be stopped. Its wrath can be devastating to your home. The cost to repair the damage can destroy your household budget and decimate your family’s savings fund. There is nothing we can do about it. It hits us every year.

Winter. Why should you think about the winter now? Not too many of us have the spare time to do more than one item per weekend from the “honey do” list. There are 9 weekends between now and winter. Subtract the number of weekends you already have things planned that you’d rather not do; factor in the weekends you hope to go play outside in the fresh air; then guesstimate how many “surprise” weekends you’ll spend entertaining the in-laws. You’ll find that you have very little time for only a handful of projects. How do you prioritize?

The fixes and improvements we should do now that will benefit us most during the winter aren’t usually realized until it is actually winter. Getting ready for winter isn’t only about preventative measures. Be proactive. Consider some of things that you can do now that will make your winter life a whole lot better later.

Bee and Jay Plumbing strongly recommends you do not wait until it’s too late to winterize your indoor and outdoor plumbing.
whyWinterize_frozen-hose-bibIf you live in your home throughout the winter, there should be little need to winterize your plumbing. However, there may be places that are subject to freezing in crawl spaces or in pipes in poorly insulated exterior walls. Freezing water in a pipe under pressure can cause the pipe to burst which has severe damage potential (think about what’s under those pipes). For these areas simple insulation and/or heat tape may do the trick. Generally, you should not worry too much about freezing in drain pipes, except in the traps, beneath sinks, tubs, and showers, they do not hold enough water to cause damage if frozen.

 

If you have a vacation home that you are leaving for the winter, or are going to be out of town for a few weeks during the winter, we suggest taking further steps to winterize your plumbing, including fixtures (toilets, sinks) and outdoor hose spigots. There are some things you can do without the assistance of a plumber, if you have a whirlpool tub with an air-pump turn it on for a few moments to empty any water that may have gotten into the jets. In the laundry room, shut off the valves to the wash machine. Drain the hoses and then drain any water that may still be in the washer itself. You can do this by briefly activating the pump-out cycle of the wash machine.

If you do not already have one, it is a good thing to have a faucet installed as low down as possible in your fresh water system. This will allow you to drain all of the fresh water out of the system when not in use. As long as most of the water has been drained out of the system, there is no real need to flush the system with anti-freeze.

However, you might pour a bit of antifreeze into drains where there are traps. Traps are those curves in the pipe under the sink. They hold water as a means of preventing fumes coming back up the pipe and into the house. Instead the fumes go up the stack and out of the house at a point above the roof. Water can freeze in the trap, but a bit of anti-freeze should prevent this in all but the coldest conditions.

If you have a boiler for your heating system it is a good idea to run the heat system through a cycle or two to check for air in the system. If you hear banging (not ticking) or the sound of rushing water, it may be time to bleed a radiator or two.

The harsh cold winter and all of its devastation will be here soon. As the fleeting warm weekends between now and then fly by, make your defense plan and prepare. It could prevent you from having to climb the ladder in a sub-zero snowstorm, and save your house along with your wallet.

We’ve Been Busy

We’ve Been Busy

It’s been a couple of weeks since our last blog. We know you’ve missed us… and we’re sorry. Here’s what was keeping us from you.

Hurricane Irene! She hit us hard here in Westchester and Putnam Counties. We did a record number of sump pump replacements as well as flooded basement pump-outs.

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Power outages for numerous days resulted in multiple emergency generators to provide temporary power for all of our municipal districts. We basically worked around the clock maintaining water service for all of our customers in the area.

Residual power surges and brown-outs kept us busy responding to many of our residential customers whose submersible pumps and controls were damaged.

We replaced a few hot water heaters damaged by severe flooding. One customer had 4 feet of water in their utility room for us to pump out before we could replace their entire hot water heater complete with pipe, valves and wiring.

 

We’re hoping for a dry autumn, to bring life back to normal for our Techs and our valued customers.

Another Potential Disaster Averted!

In keeping along similar lines of our last blog, sometimes owners fear the worst when they have to call a plumber to address what could be a severe and expensive issue in their home. On Friday, we got a call from a long-term customer with inadequate hot water throughout thier home.

Jimmy and Ryan responded to the call and tested and inspected and found the problem was not their hot water heater. The problem was an outdoor bar sink faucet that had a broken stem causing a cross-connection making them lose hot water in the house. They warmed up the blow torch and installed isolation valves, fixing the problem and making hot showers for everyone possible again. This particular service call only took an hour and they were able to clear a clogged shower drain as well…

We can’t stress enough how important it is to call your plumber no matter how bad you think the situation could be- it doesn’t always mean it will be as bad as you fear.

Click here for pictures of Jimmy and Ryan on the job!

A No-Water Emergency Might Not Be Because of Your Well Pump

You’re on the other side of a lightning storm and all of a sudden you have no water. You panic at the thought of a costly well pump replacement and calling a plumber is the last thing you want to do….. Take a minute to read about our weekend.

Due to the severe lightning we had this weekend we had a record number of emergency no water calls- and amazingly enough- all of them had one common culprit…. the pressure switch….

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The pressure switch is the primary sensing device on your water storage tank which operates your submersible well pump and controls the cycling of your water system.

The first pressure switch we replaced this weekend was defective internally. The bellows diaphragm rotted, causing internal leakage and burnt out the switch control.

Another pressure switch was internally burnt out due to the lightning storm the previous evening and caused a power surge to melt the internal electrical components.

After a solid 24 hour block of dealing with what could have been our customers worst fear of having to pull and replace their submersible pump and all related equipment from their well…. we were able to give them their water service back with an inexpensive part- a primary component to their water system.

Your Questions Answered

Your Questions Answered

“My outside faucet runs fine when I turn it on, but when I connect a garden hose to it, the water starts to backup in the pipe and leak into the basement. Why?”
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It sounds like your hose bib froze during the winter and you have a crack in the pipe from the faucet. You probably have a frost-proof sill-cock, which actually has a shut off valve inside the house, through a long stem from the handle. The crack is probably tight enough to prevent water from leaking when there is no back-pressure, but the moment you put a hose on and increase the back-pressure it leaks into the house. You should have it replaced. This is not a job for the average do-it-yourselfer. To prevent hose bibs from freezing, always disconnect water hoses before freezing temperatures arrive and cover hose bibs with an insulation kit.

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DIY Tips For Preventing Drain Clogs

DIY Tips For Preventing Drain Clogs

PREVENTING DRAIN CLOGS

No plumbing problem is more common or more frustrating than a clogged drain. Drains can usually be cleared easily and inexpensively, but taking some simple precautions will help you avoid stop-ups. Proper disposal of kitchen waste will keep sink drain clogs to a minimum.

Following these suggestions can help keep the cash in your pocket instead of down your pipes!

  • Don’t pour grease down the kitchen sink. Ever.
  • Don’t wash coffee grounds down the sink. Throw them out.
  • Be sparing with chemical cleaners, particularly if you have brass, steel, or cast-iron traps and drainpipes; some caustic chemicals can corrode metal pipes and leave you with issues worse than clogs.
  • If used no more than once every few months, cleaners containing sodium hydroxide or sodium nitrate can be safe and effective.
  • Clean floor drain strainers. Some tubs, showers, and basement floor drains have strainers that are screwed into the drain opening. You can easily remove these strainers and reach down into the drain with a bent wire to clear out accumulated debris. And be sure to scrub the strainer.
  • Clean pop-up stoppers in the bathroom sink and the tub regularly. Lift out sink pop-ups once a week and rinse them off.
  • Every few months, remove the overflow plate on a tub and pull up the pop-up assembly to reach the spring or rocker arm. Remove accumulated hair and rinse thoroughly.

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Welcome to Bee and Jay on WordPress

Welcome to Bee and Jay on WordPress

Welcome to Bee and Jay Plumbing on WordPress!

This is a place where we intend to share with you some tricks of the trade, post some how-to videos, and keep you informed on the latest and greatest plumbing & heating innovations…..

We welcome and encourage as much feedback as possible- the more you tell us what you want to read about, the more we’ll be able to give you!

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Happy blogging!

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